Changes And Prospects Of The Scope Of China’s Trademark Protection

Trademarks are enjoyed legally by trademark owners according to the law. The scope ofprotection of trademarks means trademark law’s protection on trademark right, it relates to thescope which trademark owner exercise their rights directly, relates to whether using trademarkis infringement, relates to the balance of interest among trademarks owner, consumer andsocial public. Trademark law in China is limited in the protection of trademarks. The reviseddraft of Trademark Law announced by State Council makes some improvement on this.Therefore, it is necessary to study the scope of Trademark law’s protection and to proposerevising advises on perfecting it when we are judging the revised draft. This paper justwriten on this point. Besides the abstract, there are four parts in this article as follows:Part One review the history of protection scope of trademark law in our country. Thisarticle review "Trademark Registration Provisional Regulations" promulgated in1950,"Trademark Management Regulations" promulgated in1963,"Trademark Law of People’sRepublic of China" drew up in1982and the modifications for it in1993and2001. Theymade up the developing history of the protection scope of trademark right.Part Two analyze the characteristics and reasons of the changes on protection scope oftrademarks. According to the analyses on the evolution history of Trademark laws andregulations in Part One, it can be conclude that the idea of trademarks protection get clear, thesystem on it have developed and trademark infringement types have expanded. Thedevelopment of protection scope attributes to the constant implementation of policies onreform and opening up, the rapid development of socialist market economy, and ourconstantly deepen acknowledgement on trademark, trademarks and Trademark law. Thechange of trademark protection scope is not only the need of our reform and opening up tomeet international standard, but also the internal demand of our economy development.Part Three analyzed the deficiencies in the regulations of trademarks protection scope.There are still many detects in protection scope of trademarks because of various of reasons.They are mainly incomprehensive of trademark protection types, ineffective protection ofnon-registered trademark, infringement judgment standard not clear, The basic position ofconfusion theory in trademark law can’t established, dissimilation of well-known trademark’s special protection, shortage of restricted conditions on trademarks and the trademarks are notrestricted rationally and necessarily.Part Four listed some suggestions on perfecting the protection scope of trademark rightsin our country. This part made judgments on the revises draft of "Trademark Law" and at thesame time, it proposes some suggestions on how to complete the protection scope oftrademark rights. For example, expand trademark rights’ protection types, perfect theregulations on trademark components, strengthen the protection of non-registered trademarks,make trademark infringement standard clear and definite, establish trademark infringementjudging standard based on "confusion theory", use "same or similar mark" to clarify variousconditions including trademark, business firm, commodity name and commodity package thatmay cause confusions, limit the special protection for well-known trademarks necessarily andincrease restrictions on trademark rights.